Please Kill Me - Chapter 137
And Vasily thought:
‘Did she feel like this, too?’
He wished he had treated her better when she was here. But now, the only thing keeping him company was a yellow rubber duck floating in the lukewarm bathwater.
Reflecting on this, he felt he could truly understand Olga’s words, “I feel somehow empty.”
But it seemed he wasn’t the only one feeling this way.
Not just Olga and Vasily, but the servants of the Rostislav estate were also acutely feeling Yekaterina’s absence.
During her stay, the gardener Josip, who had gained a good friend in Yekaterina, used to grin frequently. Of course, this was limited to when Yekaterina was around, but for other servants who had never seen Josip smile before, it was a shocking sight.
— Seeing how he acts around the Miss, he’s kinder than I thought. The other day, he turned bright red just from a compliment about the seedlings.
— I thought he was just grumpy, but it seems he has a softer side.
— When I see him eating custard cream messily, he doesn’t seem as scary anymore.
— Maybe I should try talking to him. I’ve been curious about how he grows his plants so well.
Yekaterina had broken down the walls Josip had built around himself. Thanks to her, the other servants began approaching Josip, who, although awkwardly at first, gradually warmed up to them.
“Don’t step in here! I’ll grind up everyone who steps foot in the greenhouse and use them as fertilizer!”
But with Yekaterina gone, Josip’s grumpiness had returned with a vengeance. He spent his days with a scowl that resembled a miserly old man, snapping at every little thing that came his way, as if he had lost the most precious item in the world.
Josip’s method of expressing his grief was the most violent. The chef Igor, for example, also missed Yekaterina deeply.
Though he simply sank into serious depression.
“The Miss… won’t be coming back.”
The moment he heard that Yekaterina, who had escaped, would never return, he uttered those words like a cry of despair.
He looked as if he had lost a cherished pet forever, then fetched a large pot big enough for at least two people and set it on the fire. He proceeded to prepare a turkey stew, filling the pot with onions, potatoes, and carrots, peeling, chopping, and adding them to the pot.
Throughout the process, Igor did not utter a single word. Though the clattering of utensils and the clinking of ingredients hitting the pot were unavoidable, even those sounds seemed to echo like a funeral dirge.
It was a drastic change from the usual lively kitchen atmosphere filled with Igor’s cheerful humming, the rhythmic chopping of vegetables, and playful banter with the kitchen maids. For a week, everyone in the estate had to eat turkey stew with no sign of the pot bottoming.
It wasn’t until Vasily began to wonder if the things falling from his head were hair or turkey feathers that Igor finally prepared a different dish. Though still gloomy, Igor no longer served the same menu continuously.
But the snack times that had once been a regular occurrence never returned. Igor had stopped making desserts altogether. After a month of working in the barren kitchen, Igor put down his ladle and declared.
“I must return to my former job.”
The problem was that he delivered this announcement to Vasily.
Vasily, feeling a strange sense of deja vu, asked, “What do you mean by returning to your former job?”
“I was once an elite soldier.”
The source of the deja vu was easily found.
“But I found more joy in cooking than in slaying monsters. Fortunately, I received the late Duke’s favor and was able to join the kitchen. That day, I put down my longsword and picked up a kitchen knife, and was reborn.”
“Then you should engrave that favor into your bones and live contentedly with your new occupation.”
“I don’t know why, but I just feel so empty inside.”
Vasily squeezed his eyes shut.
“I used to find happiness just in being able to make delicious food. As you know, when living as an elite soldier, there were times when I was so starving I even thought of roasting monster corpses.”
The elite forces of Rostislav were formed to purify the contaminated forests. These forests, overrun by monsters that devoured everything in their path and even gave birth to more monsters, had caused severe damage to the nearby estates.
Rostislav, located right near the affected area, had suffered significantly from the monsters. Consequently, they took in orphaned children who had lost their families to the monsters, taught them various skills, and employed them. Among these children, those who showed exceptional skills like Olga or had a deep hatred for the monsters were selected for the elite forces.
These elite soldiers often spent weeks in the contaminated forests, tracking the monsters’ lairs.
Igor hated this harsh life and left it to join the kitchen.
